Assembly of the Dead

By Saeida Rouass

Based on the true story of the so-called 'Moroccan Jack the Ripper'

 

Morocco, 1906. The country is caught between growing European influence and domestic instability. As young women disappear from the alleyways of Marrakesh, Farook Al-Alami, a detective from Tangier, is summoned to solve the case of the apparent abductions. Investigating crimes in a country without a police force, Farook enters Marrakesh on the orders of the Sultan. But, in a city under siege from famine and death, he must rely on his own intuition and skill to uncover the mystery of the women s fate. Will anything halt the spate of disappearances until then? And can a single, criminal pair of hands lie behind events? As the story of the missing women becomes increasingly treacherous, the tension escalates around Jemma el-Fna, where the dead assemble.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Impress Books
• Release date: Sep 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781907605789

Book preview

Prologue

Assiya lent against the wall, lost to her surroundings. Resignation poured out of her eyes and onto the ground. Where once she saw possibility, she now felt nothing but guilt. A guilt so strong it churned her stomach and displayed her sins across her once youthful face for all to see. If she had known it would be so difficult she would have avoided the situation completely, ignored his attention and her own desires. But it was too late for that now. She had made her choice, if it were any choice at all. She could not have love without heaping scorn on others. Her freedom would be built on the captivity of the weak. She thought of her mother, who would most likely be pacing the room, waiting for Assiya’s return and wondering if she had trusted her daughter too much. To leave her in that state would be to commit the greatest of sins: the sin of ingratitude.

She looked up from her thoughts to find him watching her intently. The quill had ceased its scratching, hovering suspended over rough parchment, the ink staining his fingers. He did not speak. She had used him, exploited his fascination with her for her own ends. Now that the end had come he would demand his payment. Whatever his demand she would fulfil it, if only to silence him and then return to her life and make do with the small joys it offered.

‘Shall we begin?’ he asked gently.

She nodded and began her dictation.

My darling,

I write this letter with a broken heart and have spent long nights awake thinking of what to do. I have thought of the promises we made and how you will feel now that I must break them. I know I am giving up on myself as much as you. I see two roads ahead of me, but I must only take one.

I can meet you at the gate and we can leave this city. We can go in any direction we want and wherever we end we will be together. We can make our way on the road ahead and perhaps one day we will find ourselves at the ocean. I have never seen the ocean. People talk about it the way they talk about freedom. I have never been free, except when I am with you. With you I am free of everything. I am not limited by the expectations of others or by my fears. I would like to watch the ocean with you next to me. I would like to dig my feet into the sand and run into the water screaming and laughing.

There is another road, one harder to bear but based on a deeper love than ours. I can give you this letter and walk away, then return to my father and mother and never see you again. I can wait for my father to find me a husband and hope he is decent. I cannot abandon my mother and leave her to her fate. I must take the second road. My mother is the strongest person I know, but if I leave it will break her. It will destroy her purpose, her whole reason for being.

I cannot shame my father. He may not be an easy man – few are – but he carries a heavy load on his back. My leaving will not lighten his load; it will only increase it.

Perhaps one day you will marry and be happy. I wish that for you. I will think of you often and imagine you standing on the shore with your children playing around you and your wife with the taste of salt on her lips. By taking the second road I know what I am giving up: you, and the dreams we made. Though I cannot join you, I ask you to honour those dreams.

Your love,

Assiya

He looked up, suspending his quill in his hand once more. Placing it down, he waited until she composed herself. The corners of his mouth turned in the merest hint of a smile. His eyes eagerly watched her face contort as she tried to control her emotions. Anger, fear, sadness flickered, morphing into one another, then into a vacant stare.

‘The world has broken you, Assiya,’ he said, ending the silence.

She did not reply.

‘It breaks us all,’ he mumbled to himself.

‘I am not broken.’

‘I have written your letters since the beginning of this affair, and read his to you. This one is different; there is no joy, no passion. You are ending it. It appears to me you are broken.’

Assiya shook her head in defiance. The world had not broken her. Her strength was buried deep. It was better to appear weak.

‘I am not broken,’ she repeated. ‘It is an issue of choice. I have the choice.’

He walked towards her and stopped close so he could look deep into her almond eyes that revealed what her words sought to hide.

‘This world is not made for girls like you, Assiya, nor you for it. You were made for the next. This world is not yet ready for your choices and if it cannot break your spirit, it will break your body.’

Her eyes fluttered for a moment in panic, overcome by his stale breath. It was true; she did not belong here. She belonged nowhere, but the only thing that made any sense was to find a way to fight.

‘Then my spirit will not leave until justice is done,’ she replied, meeting his glare.

He observed her for a while, wishing things could be different.

‘In that case, you will stay for eternity.’

Without warning she pushed against his chest and ducked under his arm to escape. He grabbed her neck and held her against the wall, a triumphant grin crossing his face. Her eyes bulged and she fought to muster a scream as he leaned into her face and whispered, ‘This is not how I wanted it to be.’ He smashed her head hard against the wall and let go. She collapsed in a heap.

The triumph he felt only moments ago was quickly replaced with disappointment. He looked down at the body lying at his feet, her shallow breathing just detectable beneath the layers of clothes. She would never have gone voluntarily; her rebelliousness was insurmountable. She would have never willingly joined his assembly.

PART ONE

1

A stranger in Marrakesh

Farook al-Alami stepped out of his funduq and lifted his jellaba and selham above his ankles. He checked his shoes, hoping the shine he had given them that morning would survive the dust of the city. Straightening his back, he looked at the small door he had just crouched through. It was made from dark cedar wood, brought in from the slopes of the Atlas Mountains. Despite the hand-carved patterning of rectangles arranged above each other and filled with ornate swirls and loops, there was nothing distinctive about the door. The whole country was adorned with arched doorways, laboriously carved by carpenters or their young apprentices.

All that made this door distinctive was the fact it was set in a larger wooden frame. This too could be opened, for traders with their merchandise and livestock on market day. It set the building apart from the other residences in the alleyway, and Farook hoped it would help him find his funduq again.

The streets of Marrakesh seemed designed to confuse those new to the city. Long, winding alleyways took sharp, meaningless turns that led into dead-ends or even narrower paths, overshadowed by forward-leaning terracotta walls which rose two floors and ended abruptly in flat rooftops. Perhaps confusion was the aim. The alleyways baffled visitors to the city, and its small doors forced those who passed through them to stoop in an orderly queue. Any mountain or Saharan tribe seeking to invade Marrakesh would find their attack slowed and their troops forced into a queuing etiquette not befitting an army of bandits.

Farook’s attempt to locate the funduq the previous evening had left him feeling a little disoriented, and, at times, had seemed more challenging than the treacherous journey he had just completed from Tangier to Marrakesh, regardless of the short interruption in Fez.

The funduq came recommended, or prescribed, rather, by a close friend from Tangier. Farook had not seen his friend for many years and was surprised to find a message, delivered via courier, awaiting him in Fez. The proprietor of the respected funduq was eagerly awaiting his arrival in Marrakesh and ready to take care of all his domestic needs. News travelled fast in Morocco, despite the near impossibility of passage between its imperial and coastal cities, and the lack of the long-awaited wireless telegraph.

In the end it worked out well. The funduqs of Marrakesh were in various states of disrepair, some accommodating nothing more than the city’s feral cats. Only a desperate traveller would take lodgings in one of them. The howls of hungry cats and incessant bites of ravenous fleas kept even the deepest of sleepers awake long into the night.

This funduq was relatively clean, with the added touch of boiled water for bathing, a writing desk in the room, and coffee, something he had presumed he would not find in the southern city. Despite the difficulty in locating the building and the proprietor’s compulsive need to faff and fuss, Farook was relieved to be lodging there, and even more relieved he had not been forced to spend his first night outside the city walls.

He had arrived in Marrakesh the evening before, just in time to enter before the city gates were closed. The gates locked in residents and, more importantly, kept out criminals and vagrants. Farook al-Alami was no criminal, though it was a crime that had brought him to the city. His travels had brought him so far inland the fresh sea air felt like a childhood memory. Even stuck in the middle of the land, he still felt the call of the two oceans no matter how far he wandered.

He awoke early, as he preferred, and though he could not take his usual morning stroll along the coast as he did in Tangier, he would make do with getting lost in the alleyways of this mountain-locked metropolis. Besides, the sooner he introduced himself to the city officials the sooner his work could begin.

The air outside was as still as the alleyway. Nothing stirred, not even the flies. He walked south towards Jemaa el-Fnaa, convinced that regardless of the path he took, he would eventually come out into the square. He had been told in Fez that every alleyway led to Jemaa el-Fnaa and the city always drew you to the square, even if you began your journey heading in the opposite direction. It was like a magnet that pulled the city to its centre, releasing its attraction only after the last snake charmer had placed his fanged cobra in its basket and the last storyteller had told his final fable to a yawning crowd.

Farook followed his long, sturdy nose around corners, into dead-ends and back out to take other paths. Deep in the alleyways, it felt like the day had not fully broken. The buildings left the air crisp and cast shadows ahead. If he stretched out his arms he could touch the walls on either side, not that he wanted to. They were, in parts, so caked in grime it was difficult to see the red earth beneath.

He entered a wider street with shopfronts slightly raised above the cumbersome and dusty path. The smells of the previous evening’s market still lingered in the air, the odour of dried mule dung undercut with the souk’s merchandise: cinnamon, clove and raw leather.

As foretold by the descriptions of the city he had heard, he found himself eventually in Jemaa el-Fnaa. At this early hour, the square was almost as quiet as the alleyways, but with at least some evidence of life. A group of donkeys had congregated during the night in the eastern corner. Huddled tightly together, they stood sharing a comforting moment before the weight of the city was loaded onto their backs once more, to transport goods as far as its numerous gates and beyond.

Just beyond the donkeys, men offering potions for impotence, powders for infertility, and spells to cast evil spirits from a person’s home or body, were beginning to stir under their layers of ragged clothes and blankets, setting up their displays of ornate bottles and magical instruments. Gradually they emerged from their woollen bundles, as though rising from graves on the Day of Resurrection, bleary eyed and uncertain of their whereabouts.

Farook passed these men, avoiding eye contact. He was not a superstitious man. He believed their magic was no different to that of the snake charmers and storytellers also plying their trade in the square on a nightly basis. All relied on fear and imagination to coerce the resigned into parting with a coin or two on the promise of a better life, or, at the very least, a temporary escape from this one. These medicine men, with one foot in the supernatural and the other in the temporal, had seen humanity at its worst, at its most desperate. Farook preferred not to look into their eyes because he disliked peering into the despair they witnessed.

He continued through the square towards the Koutoubia Mosque, its minaret rising up to the cloudless heavens. He had heard so much about this mosque that seeing it with his own eyes felt anti-climactic. It looked exactly how he had imagined it would and not much more. Somehow, its significance as the grandest place of worship at the furthest westerly point of Muslim land seemed lost on its plain sandstone walls and conventional structure.

He swung to the left, leaving the mosque and thoughts of religion behind, and soon entered yet another series of narrow alleyways. This neighbourhood was a vast improvement compared to where he was staying: its walls clean and smooth to the touch, the floor cobbled and swept.

Eventually he came to the house which fitted the description given to him. The arched door was also made of dark cedar wood and at its centre hung a large brass knocker in the shape of a woman’s hand. ‘The Hand of Fatima.’ There to repel the evil eye of passers-by from the threshold.

Farook held the hand, the brass cold in his palm, and knocked twice. He hoped his host would surrender easily and there would be no need for an unnecessary confrontation.

2

By order of the Sultan

There was no answer.

Farook placed his ear to the door, not a sound or sign of life from within. He shifted his weight to his left leg and continued to wait.

He lifted the doorknocker once more and was preparing to release a knock that might wake the entire neighbourhood when he detected the pattering of leather slippers on tile heading towards him from within the house. Directly at eye level a window slid open leaving a small rectangular gap in the door. He saw no one on the other side.

‘Who is there?’ a meek voice asked from beneath the opening.

‘Farook al-Alami, from Tangier.’

The window slid shut and once more he heard the pattering of leather slippers move back into the depths of the house. Stepping away from the door, Farook brushed imaginary fluff from his shoulders and shook out his long black cloak so that it fell into natural folds around his crisp white jellaba. He stood with his feet planted firmly into the ground, straightened his tarboosh and continued to wait.

The door was pulled open and before him stood an African girl of about eight or nine. She wore a loose cotton dress over her shoulders that stopped at her knees and her hair was braided tightly around her head. She took a slight bow and gestured for Farook to enter. As he stepped into the corridor it bent sharply to the left and he was plunged into semi-darkness.

‘Master was not expecting guests at such an early hour,’ she explained and, not allowing Farook an opportunity to answer, scurried ahead of him.

Farook followed as the corridor bent right and reflected that perhaps Marrakesh houses and social protocols were as tricky as its streets.

Lost in his thoughts, he found himself suddenly bathed in bright sunlight. Ahead of him stood an inner courtyard which opened to the sky. Around the courtyard was an elevated path and whitewashed pillows holding up the second floor of the house. In the centre of the courtyard was a fountain delicately trickling a stream of water from its ornate brass spout into a round basin. The floors were covered in deep green parquet tiles that crawled across the courtyard and up the surrounding walls, each carefully placed by hand. The upper parts of the walls were covered in decorative plasterwork, the baroque patterning around the entire courtyard both enchanting and overbearing. In the far right-hand corner stood a young orange tree which let off a sweet citrus aroma. The soft heat collecting in the courtyard and the sound of trickling water would be seductive to any visitor. Farook observed the various details and began to estimate the hours of labour it must have taken to complete the house.

A cough brought his attention back from his mental calculations and he looked down to see the little slave girl staring up at him with mischievous wide eyes and a twitching grin. She quickly turned and scurried around the courtyard to a door opposite. Opening it, she bowed once more and indicated for Farook to enter. Removing his shoes and selham, Farook bowed back to the girl, amused at her playfulness and handed over the items. He stepped into the room.

Turning toward the girl he saw her grin had changed into a contrived grimace. She stood holding his shoes slightly away from her body, as though holding a scorpion by the tail. Looking up at Farook, a small giggle escaped her lips once more, which she made no attempt to contain.

‘Qadi Abdullah al-Hassani will be with you shortly,’ she whispered, retracing her steps.

Farook was alone in the room. The two windows on either side of the doorway opened to the courtyard, breaking the dimness with shafts of sunlight. He stepped further in and took a seat on the floor divan, which wrapped around the side of the walls. Tapping his index finger against his knee, he waited once more.

Looking up, he admired the wood-carved ceiling, beams running down the length of the room with geometric patterns coloured burnt orange. A large Persian rug stretched across the floor and a grand clock stood against the back wall counting time.

A lot could be learnt from observing what a man surrounded himself within the privacy of his home. So many houses in Morocco were festooned with decorative features: carved wooden ceilings, tiled floors and walls weighed down by the ubiquitous plasterwork. The outside of the house in no way hinted at the beauty contained within. If his home was anything to go by, his host seemed no different to other officials in the makhzan. A position in government provided ample opportunity for personal enrichment, which most officials never shied away from exploiting.

Farook heard footsteps and stood ready for his host. An ageing man entered the room, his frame small and thin. He too wore a white jellaba with a crimson tarboush resting on his head and in his right hand he clutched a pearl rosary with a black tassel.

They greeted each other in the usual way, a combination of head bows and gentle handshakes. This was accompanied by a series of enquiries about the well-being of one’s health and family, repeated over and over in varying incantations until all enquiries were exhausted. With the greetings complete they took their seats, Farook waiting for Qadi Abdullah al-Hassani to sit first.

‘Bring tea,’ the judge called towards the door.

‘Thank you, but I do not drink the stuff.’

A silence fell between them. The judge sat gently counting his rosary, a slight murmur escaping his mouth to accompany each bead as it passed through his thumb and index finger.

‘You are from the north,’ he stated.

‘That is correct,’ confirmed Farook, his accent revealing more than he preferred. ‘Tangier.’

‘Has a new drink arrived in Tangier which we in the south are not yet aware of?’ asked the judge. ‘Or perhaps the proximity to Europe means you Shamaliyin have more refined tastes than us southerners.’

‘It is a matter of personal choice,’ Farook assured him.

‘In the south it is considered a great offense for a visitor to refuse the hospitality of his host.’

‘I mean no offence and would gladly take some chilled water if available.’

‘Bring water,’ the judge called, his attention returning to his rosary.

They sat in silence and while doing so Farook inspected his host as best he could. He noticed the man’s delicate hands, skin sagging. His nails were clean and cut close to his fingers. And despite his physical frailness, the judge had clearly not lost his thirst for power, even in the most mundane of conversations.

Farook had been warned in Fez that Qadi Abdullah al-Hassani was a formidable official who had survived tribal raids, changes of Sultan and city intrigues through cunning alone. Farook’s one advantage was that Marrakesh had not been warned of his arrival.

The slave girl stepped into the room and presented a silver tray to Qadi Abdullah. He took a glass, a mild tremor in his hand causing some water to spill on his jellaba.

Irritated, he clicked his tongue and she quickly presented Farook the tray, keeping her eyes firmly focused on the floor.

‘The girl seems to have taken a liking to you,’ Qadi Abdullah observed, as she left the room.

Farook took a sip of water.

‘She was a gift from the Sultan. I assume he acquired her while on one of his many expeditions.’

‘May God increase your gifts,’ said Farook.

‘Take her, she is accident prone. What use is a slave after whom I must clean up?’ the judge scoffed.

‘Thank you for the generous offer,’ Farook said, trying to hide his surprise at the Qadi’s blatant ingratitude. ‘But I must decline. I am sure our Lord the Sultan, may his reign be long, would be most disappointed to hear of her inadequacies and would happily replace the girl if you return her to the palace.’

‘Ha!’ retorted the judge, ‘the Sultan has other matters to deal with. I hear these days the court is filled with Christians and their many useless contraptions.’

‘I have heard it said,’ Farook mentioned, as he took another sip of water.

Again, a silence descended between them. The judge counted his blessings on his rosary beads and Farook thought of the thousands of ways the Sultan had snatched the blessings of others for minor offences.

‘What brings you to Marrakesh?’ asked Qadi Abdullah. ‘I do not have merchant visitors from as far as often as I once did. My son oversees much of our trade.’

Farook wondered if the judge’s reputation was well-founded after all. He had made two errors already, both based on assumptions. Only a fool acts on assumptions.

He slid his hand into the pocket of his jellaba, deciding now was the perfect time to play his one advantage and withdrew a neatly folded piece of parchment. He handed it to the judge.

Qadi Abdullah looked down at the letter, secured with an unbroken wax seal. He gulped hard, as if forced to swallow one of his prayer beads. He carefully broke the wax and unfolded the paper. He continued to look at it long after finishing the short letter. Finally, he gave it back to Farook and returned to counting his rosary, the tremor in his hand more pronounced than ever.

‘How is the Sultan, may his life be long?’ The judge’s voice choked.

‘The Sultan is well and sends his regards. He only wishes he could